MicroStation to PDF at Scale: Reading the Scale Field Right
The short version: MicroStation’s Scale field isn’t a percentage. By default it’s design units per paper unit. With a design in feet and the printer in inches, a plan at 1″ = 20′ gets a Scale of 20. Bentley’s own example: “You would enter 15 in the Scale field to make the printed output scale 15 ft per in.” Don’t press Maximize, which fits the drawing to the page. Pick the paper size your border was drawn for, then measure the result.
The rest depends on how your sheet was built, so start there.
Quotes are from the MicroStation 2026 Help at docs.bentley.com, checked Oct 19, 2026. Where Bentley’s pages leave a question open, we say so.
First: which kind of sheet do you have?
Bentley’s help describes two ways to put a scaled design inside a border. They print differently.
A. Full-size sheet, scaled references. You build “a sheet model with the sheet layout set to full size,” reference in the border at full scale, then reference the design at the scale you want. Bentley: “When printing, you print the sheet at full size.” The drawing scale was already applied when the design was referenced, so the print itself is 1:1.
B. Border scaled up to fit the design. The sheet model’s Annotation Scale makes the border (and text) large enough to surround the real-size design. “For example, if the border is 20 times its normal size, all text also would have to be 20 times its normal size.” You then print at the scale that shrinks the border back to paper size, 1:20 in that example, and the design shrinks with it.
If you’re not sure which method your files use, ask whoever set up your workspace before you start changing print scales.
The Print dialog, field by field
Open it from the ribbon with File > Print > Print, or File > Print > Print to PDF. Scale, Maximize and the size and position fields don’t show at first. Bentley marks each of them “Visible only if Show Preview and Show Details are displayed,” so expand both panels.
| Field | Set it to | What Bentley says |
|---|---|---|
| Printer | A PDF driver | Bentley’s PDF driver configuration “is named pdf.pltcfg.” |
| Paper Size | The sheet your border was drawn for | “Lets you choose the paper size from a list of available paper sizes for the selected printer.” Bentley’s pages don’t list which sizes pdf.pltcfg includes. |
| Area | Sheet if your model has a sheet definition | Sheet means “The print area is defined by the sheet definition.” The other choices are View and Fence. |
| Color | Monochrome for B&W sets | The choices are “Monochrome, Grayscale, or True Color.” |
| Rasterized | Off for line drawings | “By default, Rasterized mode will be turned on when shaded display styles are detected.” |
| Scale | Method A: full size. Method B: your drawing scale. | “By default, this is displayed as master units to paper units.” |
| Maximize | Don’t click it | It “Automatically fits the selected view or fenced area into as much of the printable area as possible.” That’s fit-to-page. |
A note on Rasterized: Bentley says a rasterized print is “a print file consisting entirely of raster tiles,” and for a vector DGN, “a rasterized print file is usually larger than a non-rasterized print file.” It’s there for transparency, shaded views and anti-aliasing. For a plan sheet of lines and text, leave it off unless a shaded view needs it.
Getting the number into the Scale field
Bentley defines the print scale as “the number of design units (working units) that equate to each paper (printed) unit.” So it depends on two unit settings: your design’s master units, and the Print dialog’s units under Settings > Units (inches, feet, mm, cm, dm or m).
With master units in feet and the dialog in inches:
| Drawing scale | Enter in Scale |
|---|---|
| 1″ = 10′ | 10 |
| 1″ = 20′ | 20 |
| 1″ = 50′ | 50 |
| 1/8″ = 1′-0″ | 8 |
| 1/4″ = 1′-0″ | 4 |
For a full-size sheet (method A), match the units first. Bentley’s 1:20 example switches the printer’s units to feet “to match the design file’s master units” and then enters 20. Following the same logic, a full-size print with matching units is a Scale of 1. Bentley doesn’t spell out that exact case, so check your result against a known dimension.
Ratios like 1:20 or a metric 1:250 are easier in the Scale Assistant (the icon next to Scale). Its Method lets you enter the scale as Design : Paper or Paper : Design.
Two more things Bentley says about scale. “Changing the scale, or either size dimension (X or Y), automatically results in changes to the remaining parameters to maintain the aspect ratio of the print.” And when you print by View, “Scales that result in print sizes too large for the paper size are not permitted.” If MicroStation won’t take your scale, the paper is too small for the drawing at that scale. Choose a bigger sheet.
The preferences that can change your scale for you
Open Settings > Preferences in the Print dialog. Several settings decide what happens to your scale when something else changes:
- Maximize on new plot area. “If on, the print size is maximized automatically when the print area changes.” Turn it on and placing a fence or switching views can fit-to-page behind your back.
- Enable scale preservation. “If on, the current plot scale is preserved when a new view, fence, or paper size is selected.”
- Default form scale priority. “If on, the default form scale is reapplied whenever the paper size changes.”
- Honor sheet layout. “If off, the Print dialog operates as if no sheet layout information is set.” Keep it on if you print from sheet models.
- Allow paper size editing. With a Bentley driver, this shows Paper size fields so you “can change the size of the selected form.” It’s the documented way to type a size the list doesn’t have. “This setting applies only to Bentley printer drivers.”
After any of these, look at the Scale field again before printing.
Paper edges and line weights
With Bentley’s driver files, Full Sheet Mode defaults to True, and Bentley says that then “the dimensions of the output print file are equal to the paper size.” For a PDF, that’s what you want: the page is the sheet. With a Windows printer driver, the Full check box does the same job.
Line weights come from the design unless something overrides them. In Settings > Print Attributes, Bentley describes Line Weights this way: “If on, elements are printed with their assigned line weights.” A pen table can resymbolize at print time. For a DWG with a plot style, the Pen Table field shows “the name of the assigned CTB/STB file,” as long as that file is where MicroStation can find it.
A whole plan set: Print Organizer
For more than a few sheets, use File > Print > Print Organizer. It saves sheets as a print set (.pset), and lets you “Print or reprint entire print sets in a single step.” Each entry in the set carries its own “size, scale, and form name,” so in principle one set can hold both 24 x 36 and 36 x 48 sheets. Bentley’s workflow: “Set the print order. Select a printer driver. Preview the print set. Click the Print icon.”
Bentley’s pages we read don’t say whether a PDF print of a set lands as one multi-page file or one file per sheet. Try it once and look at what comes out.
Quick answers
My plan prints at the wrong scale. Where do I look?
If it’s off by a factor of 12, the Print dialog’s units and your master units don’t match (inches vs. feet). If it’s off by an odd amount, something fit it to the page: Maximize, or the Maximize on new plot area preference. Fix the units, re-enter the scale, and leave Maximize alone.
Can I print 36 x 48 if it isn’t in the paper list?
With a Bentley driver, turn on Allow paper size editing and set the size. Bentley’s pages don’t say which named sizes pdf.pltcfg ships with.
How do I know it worked?
Measure. On a 1″ = 20′ sheet, a 100-foot line should measure 5 inches. Then run the file through our PDF page size checker to confirm each page is the size you meant. Our plan set checklist covers sheet order and color pages.
Printing it
We print MicroStation PDFs exactly as uploaded, at the paper size in the file. We don’t rescale or redraw anything. That includes 24×36 plan sheets and every size up to 36×48 (18×24 is the smallest). Black and white is $1.95 per sheet and color is $3.75, at any size, with no minimum. Order by 3 PM ET, ships same day, arrives as soon as the next day.
MicroStation is a trademark of Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Print My Plans is not affiliated with Bentley Systems. Steps reflect the MicroStation 2026 Help as checked on Oct 19, 2026.
